Boston's Arnold Arboretum: A Place for Study and Recreation--Supplementary Resources

By looking at Boston's Arnold Arboretum: A Place for Study and Recreation, students discover how the first arboretum in the United States became part of the burgeoning urban park movement in the second half of the 19th century. Those interested in learning more will find that the Internet offers a variety of interesting materials.

Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site
Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site is a unit of the National
Park System. Visit the park's Web
pages for a detailed history of Olmsted as well as information about
the Olmsted Archives that has historic documentation for Olmsted-designed
landscapes. Also featured on the site is the Olmsted Center for Landscape
Preservation (OCLP) providing technical assistance to historic properties
in cultural landscape research, planning, stewardship and education.

National Park Service (NPS) Historic Landscape Initiative
Learn more about the National Park Service (NPS) Historic Landscape Initiative. This program promotes responsible preservation practices that protect our nation's irreplaceable legacy--designed landscapes such as parks and gardens, as well as vernacular historic landscapes such as farms and industrial sites.

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University
Visit the Arnold Arboretum website for more information about this research and educational institution. It manages a collection of hardy trees, shrubs, and vines located on 281 acres in Boston, Massachusetts and associated herbarium and library collections. The grounds were planned and designed by the Arboretum's first director, Charles Sprague Sargent, in collaboration with the landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted as part of Boston's Emerald Necklace park system.

The Cultural Landscape Foundation
The Cultural Landscape Foundation is the only not-for-profit foundation in America dedicated to increasing the publicís awareness of the importance and irreplaceable legacy of cultural landscapes. Visit their website for more information on what cultural landscapes are and what they represent. Also learn about endangered landscapes and grassroots efforts to preserve them.

Library of Congress
Visit the American Memory Collection Web page to search through the archives for the writings of Frederick Law Olmsted, pictures from his personal collection, and information on his various parks. Also search for information on the industrialization of America, the reactionary movements to the consequences, and Arnold Arboretum. Of special note are the environmental and landscape photographs of Arnold Arboretum.

American Journal of Botany
Browse the American Journal of Botany, a journal devoted to the study of plants, for a variety of articles on botany.

The Industrial Revolution
Visit the ThinkQuest Junior Web pages on the Industrial Revolution to explore this time period that helped spark the park movement in America. The site provides important facts about the Industrial Revolution, it offers fun things to do related to the facts learned, and it recommends other sources of information related to the revolution.

For Further Reading
Students (or educators) wishing to learn more about Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles Sprague Sargent, or the Arnold Arboretum may want to read: Ida Hay, Science in the Pleasure Ground: A History of Arnold Arboretum (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995); Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999); S. B. Sutton, Charles Sprague Sargent and the Arnold Arboretum (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970); and Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1982).